Cheney's position would merit attention, though not respect, if there were any evidence that his administration's unsavory tactics did more good than harm. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Why have we not suffered another major terrorist attack ? Until 9/11, when it came to security, we were all standing around with our mouths open and our pants down around our ankles. Now, we're all awake to any hint of funny stuff. Our entire mindset has changed, now that we know that it can happen here.
It can't be said often enough; if the ends justify any means, we are no better than our enemies.

"But his vague and virtuous hopefulness rang a little hollow beside the straight talk of a man who lived through the worst terrorist attack in American history"

Hey Economist. Was Dick in the towers when they collapsed or something? Was he at the Pentagon? Newsflash, Dick Cheney was not the only person in America "who lived through the worst terrorist attack in American history". Really you can do better than that. We all lived through it and we all have crystallized the experience and therefore our outlook on life/possibility of terrorism differently.

How can you say President Obama's words rang hollow just because he doesn't manipulate the entire 9/11 trauma nor revert to cheap rhetorical tricks contained in the repertoire any TV evangelist in delivering his message? This analysis is unworthy of a newspaper that actually seems to value the exchange of ideas and not of emotions. Perhaps you should send your contribution to the New York Post. You could even put your name on it.

I carefully read the text of both speeches. The Economist is right in pointing out that President Obama's speech was long and a little disjointed. And the president's message was appropriate and pleasant --but it wasn't serious. It was perhaps even a little confused.

Cheney presented his ideas in a way that I was not familiar with, and frankly had not considered together. Most of my colleagues are serious individuals, and to varying degrees were struck by force of his argument. Perhaps he really is an incredible manipulator, and we are just falling for it again.

But I don't believe that most of the people who have posted comments here are familiar with the arguments made within the speech. These objections are *directly* addressed.

I am surprised by the intellectual laziness displayed here by my fellow subscribers.

Cheney "had been there"? What do you mean? Sorry, but pretty much everyone in New York "had been there" far more than Cheney. Cheney never served in the armed forces. A pretty poor way to base your argument that Cheney is a better moral authority than Obama.
Ah, so pretty words such as "sticking to our principles" and not committing torture are "Fine, unexceptionable words, delivered with the usual eloquence" That's not even a sentence so it doesn't deserve a period. It's surely not a sound argument so it doesn't deserve consideration.
Who is this joker? It's come to a sorry point indeed when moral principles are bland as this author tries to paint them.
This author should dig up another boring bland case from America's history: Andersonville. This is what set the tone for what our morals are and what the nation should become. This is a poor, poor article that turns to dust under any real light.

@Face Smullens "May I suggest that the best way to avoid this is to make friends? If the world likes and respects us, then that's the cheapest, easiest way to reduce the chance of bad things happening."

Sir, If it has always been easier and cheaper to just make friends, why have we had wars? I'm sure Britain could have made friends with Hitler, all they had to do was submit. In the case of Islamic terrorism, how can infidels (Hindus, Christians, Atheists) befriend those committed to martyrdom because that is their only sure bet to go to heaven?

From what base of moral superiority does President Obama make his claims? I have never seen a sitting president try to destroy the reputations of the previous administration to the extent Obama has. If he is such a person of foresight, why does he keep looking to the past? Is his moral superiority simply that he is not Bush? Is it fairness? Change?

Is political self interest any more moral than self-preservation? The United States was attacked. They responded. The Guantanamo prison camp was established in 2002 to handle enemy combatants engaged in fighting under no flag and wearing no uniform. How do you apply the Geneva conventions then? Why do you apply US civilian law to those who are captured on foreign soil? I suppose the US could have taken no prisoners and save money on running a prison camp. I seem to remember pictures of US soldiers tortured and hung from a bridge, badly burned, when they were captured. I seem to remember civilian contractors and a reporter's head being severed when they were captured. I'll bet a US soldier would find Guantanamo quite a bit more hospitable than their alternatives around the world.

Obama stated: "All too often, our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions." Does this statement also apply to his administration? Or is the Obama administration so far above reproach that we cannot critically analyze his words and deeds? Obama promised to close the prison camp but did not have the foresight to know how. Now we are back to keeping it open - but as long as we don't "torture". Cheney provided a very solid argument. I do not agree with all of it, but it was coherent and plausible. However, since he was in the Bush administration his words are immediately discounted.

Some of the posts to this article are so full of anger and hate that I fear a sensible argument from an opposing view point would only fall on deaf ears.

America is in the middle of 2 wars. 100,000's have been brutally killed or maimed during these Wars. Just in the last few days a million+ Pakistani's have become refuges.
And whats the response?
A national outcry and soul searching over 3 terrorists being water boarded. CRAZY! Anyway you slice it.

I didn't care for this article. I felt it made a rather poor argument, if one could really be discerned at all. It seems to suggest the America's involvement in torture was acceptable, if only for certain specific reasons, which, if that was the intent, lowers the moral stature of the Economist just as it had lowered the moral stature of the US.

Why Cheney's statements are accepted as credible, despite years of evidence to the contrary is beyond me.

This is the same Cheney previously claimed he was "confident" that an Iraq entanglement would not lead to a prolonged engagement and, rather, that we would be "greeted as liberators" and then would be on our way. This is the same Cheney who claimed he was confident that uranium had been obtained by terrorists at Niger (later discredited, of course). This is the same Cheney who was confident we would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This is the same Cheney who argued their was evidence that Saddam Hussein had coordinated with Al Quaeda. This is the same Cheney who claimed that torture of a suspect had prevented a bombing of the Library Tower in Los Angeles, even though it turned out later that the U.S. government had busted that ring before said tortured suspect was even arrested.

And now, finally, the same Cheney says he is confident that "perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives" were saved by torture, and he is confident that we broke wiretap laws in a professional way. Apparently Cheney has no shame. Worse yet, neither do media outlets like the Economist, much either.

Cheney is perpetuating patent untruths. We know this because it is in the public record, but Cheney's defenders and the jackass who wrote this column only care that his argument sounds "plausible". Truth and the laws of the land be damned.

Sorry, but whoever wrote this article is dead wrong in his/her justification of Cheney's actions. Sure he "had been bundled from his White House office into the presidential bunker" and was understandably fearful but there is no evidence, other than Cheney's own words, that the subsequent trampling of US law and international agreements he orchestrated made any of us safer.

And the comment "Mr Obama looked like a man whose closest brush with terror had been watching “Independence Day” only serves to reveal the agenda of the author. I am quite sick of that sort of gratuitous calumny, with only prejudice at its base, and am sorry to have read it in the Economist.

You can almost hear Dick Cheney relishing the "i told you so" moment of vindication after the next terrorist attack. His main assertion is that by closing Guantanamo, the country is less safe. But American security is not determined by the conditions in Guantanamo but by conditions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. More than anything else since 9/11, securing Afghanistan would have made Americans safer. However, rather than seizing the moment, the Bush Administration (under Cheney's guidance) dropped the ball and diverted military, developmental and financial resources away from Afghanistan and towards Iraq. We now have the same safe havens on the AfPak border as existed before 9/11 - this is the real reason Americans are less safe than a year ago. Whatever you think about the Iraq War, taking our eye off the ball in Afghanistan is something that we have paid for ever since.

JakeQuick wrote:
"Can those who so oppose Cheney, also oppose his argument?"

Gladly

"Our belief in freedom of speech and religion … our belief in equal rights for women … our support for Israel … our cultural and political influence in the world – these are the true sources of resentment, all mixed in with the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics."

Look at the language, "all mixed in with the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics." Immediately if you question what you have been handed as truth it is, "the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics." Dissent=Terror. Dissenter=Terrorist. Dissenting=Terrorist Act/Terrorism.
Look who dissenting or the questioning of the 'facts' groups you with, "radical clerics".
"You are either with us or you are against us"- George W. Bush, addressing congress at the state of the union, 2002.
This is the past Administration, and as Obama is testing the real world waters after the election rhetoric has cleared we are seeing just how badly misinformed and misguided the American people are. How successful the stupification of the populace really is.
I am so distressed over the situation in 'the greatest democracy in the world", "the land of the free and home of the brave", why? Because what had started as the greatest nation ever has ended up one of the most feared and loathed in the world. And the populace is glued to American Idol and Desperate Housewives. And so many people here are defending the actions of a war criminal, Dick Cheney, as the new young president tries to steer the USA in the right direction. I implore the American people to start questiong what is and has been presented to them as the truth. We know there were no WMDs, just one lie they told. Question the rest. Liars never lie just once. They keep doing it.
It was a populace who incapable of questioning authority that allow Treblinka, Auchwitz and Belson to happen. And they applauded and breathed a sigh of relief as their rights were stripped from them as well.
Lest We Forget.

Why hasn't Obama suggested repealing the Patriot Act if he was so outraged by abuses of the executive branch? Why does Obama want to move prisoners held at Guantanamo to US prisons instead of releasing them? Habeas Corpus applies if someone is wrongfully detained. If Habeas Corpus is violated, why doesn't Obama just release everyone and shut the base down? These men were captured on the field of battle, do they also need fingerprints to detain them? Even if Obama does move the prisoners to US detention facilities - are they not still held captive? What changes? Additionally, other countries do not want to take these unconventional prisoners back.

Why does Obama's party need to wait for him to have a plan to close Guantanamo? Or to fund anything (they are funding everything else)? Obama campaigned for two years on that promise and has yet no plan? He doesn't know how to handle these prisoners any better than what has already been done. His party has been the majority for over two years - still no plan? Obama voted for war funding (including Guantanamo) from 2005 to 2007. It was only when this issue was politically expedient that he turned up the rhetoric. It is interesting to see Obama's philosophy challenged so directly instead of taken at face value.

Let's bring everyone to Justice! Bush / Cheney! Clinton / Gore! Let's throw them all in jail with the bankers and swindlers! Be thankful that we have an administration that is unquestioningly above all reproach. Did I include tax cheats in my justice rant?

This is a weird article. After a decade of bemoaning Gitmo, the Economist suddenly discovers the need for torture, however sweetly they name it. And why? Because Dick says so, with all his experience of being flung into a bunker on that day, the same day when George finished reading a fairytale and flew off to Nebraska. Heroics all around, according to this newspaper.

Exactly what posture or stance or tone of voice does Obama need to adopt to legitimize his argument that it is wrong to torture human beings? Is the argument not self-evident? Does the Economist truly believe it bears discussing?

Yes, the Dems are nervous, because too many of them jumped on the bandwagon when it was sailing without headwinds. Now they are quaking again, because the Republicans have served notice that if anyone anywhere attacks the USA for any reason, they are going to pull out the ghost of Joe McCarthy and let loose with another witch hunt.

Hidden in here is the most dreadful assumption about the character of the American electorate, namely that in adversity it will turn on any conciliatory figure with the fury of a savage beast. Of course, Dick thinks this, with his coterie of Tom-Delay-Dick-Armey-led numskulls. But that's why these gentlemen are all in retirement. Let's hope they stay there, where all moral cowards belong.

As urgent as Cheney can make the security situation in the US sound, and as much as he might argue that the tactics of the Bush years work to prevent "terrorism" (read "enemies one wishes to deligitimise through use of language"), there are two very important facts that have been ignored. First, the only significant attack on the US happened on his watch, and which was, by most accounts, preventable. The Bush security policies failed, and quite possibly the nature of the administration inspired the attacks, yet Cheney speaks as if policy exists in a vaccum and attacks on the US are simply inevitable, random events induced by the mere existence of the US.

Second, even if he were right about everything, which he isn't, he is directly responsible for the deaths of many thousands more innocent lives than were claimed by any of the current prisoners, or even that occured in 9/11 for that matter. It's just so absurd to hear him talk about any of this when he is the one who should be sent of to a supermax prison, inspiring fear across the country should he ever escape.

Cheney is probably scared cause once Obama starts to rip down Guantanamo, fix the economy, bring about cold peace with the axis of evil and dismantle the nest of AlQuaida in Afghanistan and Iraq, well then there goes his legacy to the toilet.

It is telling that the Legacy of Cheney is all that is wrong with America today.

Here we have a draft dodger who spent all his life in Bureratic games, telling us that he is a hardened experienced warrior. Cheney's last war wound was a paper cut he got. He is more out of touch with reality than Mr. Obama.

If there was no repeat of 9/11,it was only because America stood firm in her resolve. It has become fashionable to laugh at Chaney & Bush. Ask any in Europe and they laugh patronisingly at the duo.
Democrats are making a big mistake,with one sided reaching out,to Extremists. Bush is not anti Islam,as projected,but anti barbarism,like most of the civilised people.
He chose a firm language & tactics,most suitable for the enemy concerned.